[FN#17] About the classic "Harrah," I shall have more to say at a future time. The word "Ria" in literary and in vulgar Arabic is almost synonymous with Akabah, a steep descent, a path between hills or a mountain road. [FN#18] Valleys may be divided into three kinds. 1. Longitudinal, i.e. parallel to the axis of their ridges; 2. Transversal or perpendicular to the same; and, 3. Diagonal, which form an acute or an obtuse angle with the main chain of mountains. [FN#19] This act, by the bye, I afterwards learned to be a greater act of imprudence than the sleeping alone. Nothing renders the Arab thief so active as the chance of stealing a good weapon. [FN#20] Probably, because water is usually found in such places. In the wild parts of the country, wells are generally protected by some fortified building, for men consider themselves safe from an enemy until their supply of water is cut off. [FN#22] Near Al-Hamra, at the base of the Southern hills, within fire of the forts, there is a fine spring of sweet water. All such fountains are much prized by the people, who call them "Rock-water," and attribute to them tonic and digestive virtues. [FN#23] As far as I could discover, the reason of the ruinous state of the country at present is the effect of the old Wahhabi and Egyptian wars in the early part of the present century, and the misrule of the Turks. In Arabia the depopulation of a village or a district is not to be remedied, as in other countries, by an influx of strangers; the land still belongs to the survivors of the tribe, and trespass would be visited with a bloody revenge. [FN#24] Without these forts the Turks, at least so said my companions, could never hold the country against the Badawin. There is a little amour propre in the assertion, but upon the whole it is true. There are no Mohammed Alis, Jazzars, and Ibrahim Pachas in these days. [FN#25] To "halal" is to kill an animal according to Moslem rites: a word is wanted to express the act, and we cannot do better than to borrow it from the people to whom the practice belongs. [FN#26] He is now dead, and has been succeeded by a son worse than himself. [FN#27] The greatest of all its errors was that of appointing to the provinces, instead of the single Pasha of the olden time, three different governors, civil, military, and fiscal, all depending upon the supreme council at Constantinople. Thus each province has three plunderers instead of one, and its affairs are referred to a body that can take no interest in it. [FN#28] Ziyad bin Abihi was sent by Al-Mu'awiyah, the Caliph, to reform Al-Basrah, a den of thieves; he made a speech, noticed that he meant to rule with the sword, and advised all offenders to leave the city. The inhabitants were forbidden under pain of death to appear in the streets after evening prayers, and dispositions were made to secure the execution of the penalty. Two hundred persons were put to death by the patrol during the first night, only five during the second, and not a drop of blood was shed afterwards. By similar severity, the French put an end to assassination at Naples, and the Austrians at Leghorn. We may deplore the necessity of having recourse to such means, but it is a silly practice to salve the wound which requires the knife. [FN#29] These remarks were written in 1853: I see no reason to change them in 1878. [FN#30] A weak monarch, a degenerate government, a state whose corruption is evidenced by moral decay, a revenue bolstered up by a system of treasury paper, which even the public offices discount at from three to six per cent., an army accustomed to be beaten, and disorganised provinces; these, together with the proceedings of a ruthless and advancing enemy, form the points of comparison between the Constantinople of the present day and the Byzantine metropolis eight hundred years ago. Fate has marked upon the Ottoman Empire in Europe "delenda est": we are now witnessing the efforts of human energy and ingenuity to avert or to evade the fiat. [FN#31] When water cannot be obtained for ablution before prayers, Moslems clap the palms of their hands upon the sand, and draw them down the face and both fore-arms. This operation, which is performed once or twice-it varies in different schools-is called Tayammum. [FN#32] I write this word as my companions pronounced it. Burckhardt similarly gives it "Djedeyde," and Ali Bey "Djideďda." Giovanni Finati wrongly calls the place "Jedeed Bughaz," which Mr. Bankes, his editor, rightly translates the "new opening or pass." [FN#33] Al-Khayf is a common name for places in this part of Arabia. The word literally means a declivity or a place built upon a declivity. [FN#34] Bughaz means in Turkish the fauces, the throat, and signifies also here a gorge, or a mountain pass. It is the word now commonly used in Al-Hijaz for the classical "Nakb," or "Mazik." Vincent (Periplus) errs in deriving the word from the Italian "Bocca." [FN#35] Giovanni Finati, who was present at this hard-fought field as a soldier in Tussun's army, gives a lively description of the disastrous "day of Jadaydah" in vol. i. of his work. [FN#36] This Abdullah, Pasha of Damascus, led the caravan in A.D. 1756. When the Shaykhs of the Harb tribe came to receive their black-mail, he cut off their heads, and sent the trophies to Stambul. During the next season the Harb were paralysed by the blow, but in the third year they levied 80,000 men, attacked the caravan, pillaged it, and slew every Turk that fell into their hands.
[p.264]CHAPTER XIV.
FROM BIR ABBAS TO AL-MADINAH.
THE 22nd July was a grand trial of temper to our little party. The position of Bir Abbas exactly resembles that of Al-Hamra, except that the bulge of the hill-girt Fiumara is at this place about two miles wide. There are the usual stone-forts and palm-leaved hovels for the troopers, stationed here to hold the place and to escort travellers, with a coffee-shed, and a hut or two, called a bazar, but no village. Our encamping ground was a bed of loose sand, with which the violent Samum filled the air; not a tree or a bush was in sight; a species of hardy locust and swarms of flies were the only remnants of animal life: the scene was a caricature of Sind. Although we were now some hundred feet, to judge by the water-shed, above the level of the sea, the mid-day sun scorched even through the tent; our frail tenement was more than once blown down, and the heat of the sand made the work of repitching it painful. Again my companions, after breakfasting, hurried to the coffee-house, and returned one after the other with dispiriting reports. Then they either quarrelled desperately about nothing, or they threw themselves on their rugs, pretending to sleep in very sulkiness. The lady Maryam soundly rated her surly son for refusing to fill her chibuk for the twelfth time that morning, with the usual religious phrases, "Allah direct thee into the right way, O my son!"-meaning that he was going to the bad, and "O my calamity, thy mother is a lone woman, O Allah!"-equivalent to the
[p.265] European parental plaint about grey hairs being brought down in sorrow to the grave. Before noon a small caravan which followed us came in with two dead bodies,-a trooper shot by the Badawin, and an Albanian killed by sun-stroke, or the fiery wind.[FN#1] Shortly after mid-day a Caravan, travelling in an opposite direction, passed by us; it was composed chiefly of Indian pilgrims, habited in correct costume, and hurrying towards Meccah in hot haste. They had been allowed to pass unmolested, because probably a pound sterling could not have been collected from a hundred pockets, and Sa'ad the Robber sometimes does a cheap good deed. But our party,
[p.266] having valuables with them, did not seem to gather heart from this event. In the evening we all went out to see some Arab Shaykhs who were travelling to Bir Abbas in order to receive their salaries. Without such douceurs, it is popularly said and believed, no stone walls could enable a Turk to hold Al-Hijaz against the hill-men. Such was our system in Afghanistan-most unwise, teaching in limine the subject to despise rulers subject to blackmail. Besides which, these highly paid Shaykhs do no good. When a fight takes place or a road is shut, they profess inability to restrain their clansmen; and the richer they are, of course the more formidable they become. The party looked well; they were Harb, dignified old men in the picturesque Arab costume, with erect forms, fierce thin features, and white beards, well armed, and mounted upon high-bred and handsomely equipped dromedaries from Al-Shark.[FN#2] Preceded by their half-naked clansmen, carrying spears twelve or thirteen feet long, garnished with single or double tufts of black ostrich feathers, and ponderous matchlocks, which were discharged on approaching the fort, they were not without a kind of barbaric pomp.
Immediately after the reception of these Shaykhs, there was a parade of the Arnaut Irregular horse. About 500 of them rode out to the sound of the Nakus or little kettle-drum, whose puny notes strikingly contrasted with this really martial sight. The men, it is true, were mounted on lean Arab and Egyptian nags, ragged-looking as their clothes; and each trooper was armed
[p.267] in his own way, though all had swords, pistols and matchlocks, or firelocks of some kind. But they rode hard as Galway "buckeens," and there was a gallant reckless look about the fellows which prepossessed me strongly in their favour. Their animals, too, though notable "screws," were well trained, and their accoutrements were intended for use, not show. I watched their manoeuvres with curiosity. They left their cantonments one by one, and, at the sound of the tom-tom, by degrees formed a "plump" or "herse"-column[FN#3] it could not be called-all huddled together in confusion. Presently the little kettle-drum changed its note and the parade its aspect. All the serried body dispersed as would Light Infantry, now continuing their advance, then hanging back, then making a rush, and all the time keeping up a hot fire upon the enemy. At another signal they suddenly put their horses to full speed, and, closing upon the centre, again advanced in a dense mass. After three-quarters of an hour parading, sometimes charging singly, often in bodies, to the right, to the left, and straight in front, halting when requisite, and occasionally retreating, Parthian-like, the Arnauts turned en masse towards their lines. As they neared them, all broke off and galloped in, ventre a terre, discharging their shotted guns with much recklessness against objects assumed to denote the enemy. But ball-cartridge seemed to be plentiful hereabouts; during the whole of this and the next day, I remarked that bullets, notched for noise, were fired away in mere fun.[FN#4]
[p.268] Barbarous as these movements may appear to the Cavalry Martinet of the "good old school," yet to something of the kind will the tactics of that arm of the service, I humbly opine, return, when the perfect use of the rifle, the revolver, and field artillery shall have made the present necessarily slow system fatal. Also, if we adopt the common sense opinion of a modern writer,[FN#5] and determine that "individual prowess, skill in single combats, good horsemanship, and sharp swords render cavalry formidable," these semi-barbarians are wiser in their generation than the civilised, who never practise arms (properly so called), whose riding-drill never made a good rider, whose horses are over-weighted, and whose swords are worthless. They have yet another point of superiority over us; they cultivate the individuality of the soldier, whilst we strive to make him a mere automaton. In the days of European chivalry, battles were a system of well-fought duels. This was succeeded by the age of discipline, when, to use the language of Rabelais, "men seemed rather a consort of organ-pipes, or mutual concord of the wheels of a clock, than an infantry and cavalry, or army of soldiers." Our aim should now be to combine the merits of both systems; to make men individually
[p.269] excellent in the use of weapons, and still train them to act naturally and habitually in concert. The French have given a model to Europe in the Chasseurs de Vincennes,-a body capable of most perfect combination, yet never more truly excellent than when each man is fighting alone. We, I suppose, shall imitate them at some future time.[FN#6]